Changing Patterns of Participation in Political Parties: The De-Traditionalisation of Social Democraty in Britain and Germany in a Micro-Historical Perspecive

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This sub-project will analyse the interaction between the change of political participation and growing socio-economic inequality in West European democracies from the mid-1970s to the beginning of the 21st century. This will be done by comparating the relations of the two Social Democratic parties in the FRG and Great Britain and their traditional working class voters. The decline and changing forms of political participation happened in the context of social and economic transformations which, for parts of the left-wing electoral base, was accompanied by mass unemployment and processes of de-qualification, but for others by upward social mobility. The relation of left-wing parties and their classical electoral base changed successively. Disenchantment with politics, the decline of party affiliation together with an increase in voting volatility as well as the rise of alternative ways of participation are generally regarded as clear indicators of these changes in participation. Thus, the parties were forced to adjust their programmes and their political work, which lead to the 'Third Way' (in Germany: 'Neue Mitte') concepts at the end of the 1990s. The sub-project will analyse how, in concrete terms, Social Democratic parties adjusted their political work to these changes. How, at the local level, did the parties react to the loss of members or traditional voters, which conflicts about representation and participation developed among their own followers? The project will focus on changing opportunities and different forms of political mobilisation and participation under conditions of growing social inequality, however also of increasing cultural divergence. This sub-project starts from the hypothesis that the complex connections between participation and social inequality can be best investigated by analysing the change of group configurations happening in the respective local constituencies. The change of social structures, which definitely happened in different ways at the local level, resulted in shifts of the party and electoral base, and lead to changes in the presence and weight of social groups inside the party which can be seen in different levels of participation in local party work, in shifting programmatic priorities of the parties' local agenda (e.g. topics of race and gender) and in changing profils of local party leaders representing different groups and interests. In a more general perspective, the study analyses the re-adjustment of relational equality in times of change. The analysis will deal with developments in Great Britain and West Germany, comparing two local case or micro historical studies (Frankfurt, Kassel/London).